


As One (But out of Sync)

by weheartscorose



Series: Deeper than Sweet Water River [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Southside Serpent Jughead Jones, bughead - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 21:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12690357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weheartscorose/pseuds/weheartscorose
Summary: She's the marrow in the bones of his fucked up days.Betty Cooper is the marrow in his very bones.Betty Cooper is him.Jughead punches a pillow as the alarm keeps going. He screams into the same one. He realises it smells like her, so he clings on a little tighter.And then he feels the ache in his jaw, the pulsing of blood in his split lip and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.





	As One (But out of Sync)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by, but not canon or compliant to Chapter 18: When a stranger calls. See end for more notes. Show me love because I need it.

_**As One (But out of sync)**   _

* * *

 

There are two people who move as one. They move as one being; one fluid motion. One _body_. Arms and legs carrying their movements. And if she thought he was the blood that pulsed through them, sustenance in veins, feeding of cells.

Then he knows that she is the marrow deep in their bones; a necessity. The creator of blood.

She keeps on fighting, she pushes on.

He feels like he's drawn enough blood, he has no more to give.

* * *

Jughead stares at the time on the alarm clock as it beeps to wake him up. He doesn't switch it off, he doesn't have the energy to hit snooze. He thinks briefly on the time and he wonders what Betty is doing at this exact moment. If his thoughts didn't betray him, then the smell of her in his sheets did. He woke up with her smell mixed with _his_ smell and he knows he's fucking lying to himself when he tries to make out that he's unsure of how many days it's been since he last saw her fake smile.

_Twenty-Three._

She pops up everywhere. In the taste of shakes at Pop's. Shaky tears on Veronica's face, the writing she left on his kitchen table that he hasn't been able to move. In the text messages he reads before he forces himself to sleep at least two hours at night. He's still learning how to perfect that, though. Because sometimes it's a messy forty-five minutes just before school. Or it's a solid sixteen hours and he's missed the whole fucking day. At the moment, there's no in between.

She's the marrow in the bones of his fucked up days.

Betty Cooper is the marrow in _his_ very bones.

Betty Cooper _is him_.

Jughead punches a pillow as the alarm keeps going. He screams into the same one. He realises it smells like her, so he clings on a little tighter.

And then he feels the ache in his jaw, the pulsing of blood in his split lip and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

"You hate me, don't you?" Jughead asks his best friend.

Archie Andrews wasn't a liar. And Jughead knows that Archie Andrews has a level of loyalty that the Southside wouldn't be able to rival. Archie Andrews also had a weird way of saying exactly what was on his mind even if maybe, Jughead thinks, he shouldn't. Jughead also wonders if he can count how many times Archie opens his mouth in an attempt to make up some lie, but, yet again, Archie Andrews is not a liar and it almost irritates Jughead that his best friend is torturing him in this way. "I don't hate you, Jug."

Jughead sniggers, kicks his boots on the lino floor of the trailer and stops himself from rolling his eyes. "You hate me."

"Betty still loves you she just..."

"Doesn't love what I've become."

Archie scrambles for words again. Jughead can tell. He's frantic and stumbling over his own tongue. He grabs Jughead by the collar and shakes him out, but Jughead can just feel boiling blood. "This stupid jacket is what we hate, but we love _you,_ Juggie," Archie takes a steadying breath. "Betty loves you; I miss you, Jug."

Jug wishes they were kids again. Way back when. When FP and Fred were best buds and they were back up in the treehouse. Or even not that long ago, when he was crashing on the Andrews floor and the biggest issue was Archie burning pizza.

But they're not. Archie is a Northern Suburban Knight in Shining Armour and Jughead is a Southside Serpent earning new fangs while cycling with the training wheels still on.

Hearing Betty's name made his arteries connected to his heart harden and stop pulsing, the blood was coagulating, stiffening and hardening.

Archie's words only made him feel half the amount better, because _'I-love-you's'_ from Archie Andrews were dished out as often as ' _hellos'_ , Jughead doesn't think it as a dig at his best friend, he likes to think of it as Archie just has a big heart.

But he sees his best friend glaring at the leather jacket on his shoulders and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Jughead thinks quickly on everything that he has control over.

He has freedom and the trailer is his.

He can ride out at any time, there's no limit to where he can go.

And then his chest feels tight, and his breathing is too shallow.

He can't control his repetitive reading of Betty's last texts.

Or the way he thinks the only way his heart is still beating is because Betty Cooper is still on his mind.

But the trailer is his, the bike is his, though not something he had initially wanted, Hotdog was his. And so were the bad thoughts, the mess of hair on his head, the dark rings under his eyes, the two hours sleep, the love he holds for Betty Cooper, the cigarettes he all of a sudden acquired and the pills Sweetpea insists he'll like.

They're all his.

And then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Toni has a body that is out of this world. Toni has a mouth with lips that look like they need biting. She has hair you can hold on to. Toni has words that make guys drop to their knees, Jughead knows, because Fangs told him.

She gives him that taste of Southside without the pain. And when there is pain involved, Toni makes a good makeshift nurse. She's seen things before that he's only just learning about and she makes a good teacher. And if Betty was good at teaching him school work, then Toni is schooling him at life. He feels bile at the back of his throat when he thinks of Betty and Toni in the same go. But things are complicated and no amount of digging his snake pit further into Southside was going to change that.

He couldn't be further from the North than he is right now.

Even while sitting in the Red and Black with dust plumes glittering in afternoon sun, Toni is making a passionate speech about showing the true identity of Southside High to Riverdale. And as much as taking photos of the Football team and the Drama class that just so happens to have an uncountable amount of students with nose rings and belt buckles with studs on them, he can't help but think that Toni would have a better chance at portraying this place for what it was. A festering wound that is hard to cover up.

"You've got some dark rings under your eyes, Forsythe," she says with a smirk. "You been up all night or something?"

Jughead reads the bite of her lip and the wink of her right eye. He reads it dirty but he shrugs in reply. "Hmm," he says.

Toni slinks behind his chair, pats his shoulder, ruffles his hair. "Don't worry, Juggie, if you love each other, you'll find your way back."

Do marrow and blood every actually touch? He's not sure.

He flickers briefly between thinking about how he and Betty would find their way back and believing that they had never actually ever fucking lost each other.

He flickers between Toni's lips and Betty's soul.

He flickers between loving Betty and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Betty is at Pop's alone. He knows by the way her ponytail is a little lopsided that maybe she didn't have intentions of coming out tonight but she made the effort anyways. He also knows how soft her hair feels and how hurt she must be right now.

Out of selfishness for his own battered feelings, he doesn't approach her. Or he might tell her how much he needs her. How he can't _live_ without her.

But he's at risk of looking like an idiot and his ego can't take another blow.

Her shoulders slump, he watches her hand smooth over her face and then over her hair, she cranes her neck a little; she must be looking at her phone.

He doesn't order, he walks out hungry. He kicks his bike before getting back on it.

And then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

It's sick, because every punch from _Gareth-the-Ghoulie_ sounds like Betty's name against his skin.

He feels Gareth's knuckles sing against the right side of his jaw, his teeth grate against each other but he manages a swing too, weak with his left hand side. _Betty_ , it ghosts.

Some how, Gareth gets ahold of the scruff of his neck and he's trying to tackle Jughead down, but Jug is younger, faster, he spins out, spits blood on the floor and swings his right, stronger hand. _Betty_ , it sings against Gareth's nose.

Gareth laughs manically, "Yeah, you little Serpents tougher than you look, huh?"

Jughead thinks ironically, that Gareth isn't right because if only he knew of the girl that has him crippled most of the time. But he shouldn't be thinking of her when he gets landed a blow to the temple.

He's almost out cold when he hears Sweetpea call his name.

"Betty?" Jughead asks the buzzing in his ears, it surely has to be her.

But then he realises it's not because he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Jughead feels exposed and he tries to sit up quickly when he sees her, but he also wonders if maybe he shouldn't bother. He has to be dead to be seeing Betty Cooper sitting on the end of his bed.

Once upon a time it was sneaking through bedroom windows. Then crashing out on the overused sofa in the trailer.

Then it was shouting, hateful words. Soft tender kisses in the rain. Wiping tears away in the booth at Pop's. Making himself physically fucking sick because love shouldn't be this hard, right? Betty had promised him that their loves was unshakeable, unmovable, limitless.

She had promised Jughead that their love was as easy as breathing, at what point of their love did Betty become a liar? He wonders.

Now, she was so close that he could smell her perfume, but he could also make out the tracks and paths of her tears thanks to black mascara. And as much as Jughead wanted to look away, he was a man starved. He drinks her in, he soaks up her sun, he wants to feel pain in his palms when she's in his hands. But the way she drips disgust in him hurts him more than it hurts her.

"Why are you doing this, Jughead?" she asks, sniffing.

He thinks of something stupid that might soften his words. But he can't find anything the fits well enough. "It's Southside..."

"Don't!" she hisses. "Don't tell me that! Don't lie to me!" she shakes the room, she slams a fist down on the same pillow he does every night. "Don't do this Jughead," her tears fly. "This is crazy! It's dangerous."

He thinks his love for her is the only dangerous thing around here.

He reaches with a shaky, beat up hand and wipes her tears and she sinks into his hand, closing her eyes. "I love you, Betty. I'd do anything for you. And if that means keeping on the Southside to keep them from you in the Northside, then so be it."

"Run away with me. Please," she begs. "I'm serious."

She slides into the bed with him, shaking with cold even if it's warm outside.

He wonders why she's so cold, why everything hurts. But then he remembers how they got here in the first place.

* * *

He can't keep away from her. But then, he never could. He dreams of Springtime when they were kids, riding bikes with Archie. And he misses that too. The old Archie. The one who wasn't so scared. The one that was funny. But Jughead remembers, they were all funny back then.

He laughs lightly about Betty and how way back when, she used to be a pigtail kind of girl and not much has changed, only that she's now a single ponytail kind of woman.

He had climbed up her window, kissed her a million times after paying the price of Southside, he made it up to her with her thighs around his head and her nails in his hair. He laughed against the insides of her ankles and soft kisses on her wrist and for once, Southside was left on the floor next to her radio.

Jughead lies in Betty's arms with her fingers still playing with a curl at the front of his face. "I want to go, Betty," he tells her honestly. "I want you and I to go, let's go, get out of here."

It was crazy but Jughead knew it was doable. He had arranged everything, he had money, a car. He wanted to skip, get out of here. Betty stops, tilts Jughead's head with her hands and gives him a serious look while frowning. "Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he challenges.

She inhales sharply. "Leave all this mess behind?"

He nods. He nods so hard, he feels like he looks stupid but he was serious and if he could, he would leave now. "You and me, Betts, what do you say?"

She smiles. She kisses him a million times. He smiles against her collarbone and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

The SS Camaro is in need of a paint job, but it's enough to do the trick. His heart races and the arteries barely open up but this time, not from pain. From pure, unfiltered excitement.

Jughead is ok, but he's not at the same time.

The sun shines through the window of the car and he knows it should be burning him, it's unnaturally hot today but he feels almost nothing at all. Crashing waves is what he feels in the tightness of his chest and freefalling right in the pit of his stomach. He's scared. He's worried.

He'd give up his entire life just for this.

Betty is two minutes late but the way her ponytail swings with her brisk walk and her suitcase rolling behind her, he can see that those two minutes was part of his time well spent. She was here, and every step on the pavement as she walks to the car feels like they sprout sunflowers from the concrete and her smile is rooting itself in his veins. Just seeing her is completing him. He revs the engine, she opens up.

They look at each other; Jughead lets Betty peer directly into his soul and at one point, he feels her inside of him. She shuts the heavy door, it makes her flinch but she takes a deep breath, steadies herself, closes her eyes. Inhales.

He turns on the indicator to signal out of the street but before he moves, he kisses her cheek. "I love you, Betty Cooper."

Betty smiles like the sun in the middle of Summer, burning him, charred skin. "I love you too, Jughead," she breathes. "Let's go."

"Where to?"

"Our new home," she laughs. "Anywhere!"

Jughead remembers how he got here in the first place.

 _Love_.

* * *

There are two people who are one. With him being the blood that pulses through their body and she being the marrow in his bones.

They do not fight alone, the body floats to the surface while drowning. A constant ticking mind with an equally as consistently beating heart.

They are one.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so for my Vanilla Lips fans, in around chapter 8/9 (I should know my own story but I don’t) Jughead and Betty are waiting for JB to turn up and mention that they skipped town and tried to run away and after episode 18 it inspired me to elaborate on what I had already written in Vanilla Lips as well as tie it in to the show! Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
